❌   I am *not* an attorney. Under no circumstances should my online content, sassypants comments, or nerdy thoughts be taken as legal advice. Yikes. Don’t do that. I am not qualified. If you and I are working together and I think you need an attorney, I will tell you. 

 

✅  As a not-attorney, let me tell you what I am: a professional in the field of conflict prevention, management, and resolution. You may have heard the saying: “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” One friend described it this way: we are trained to “hear” the ticking before a conflict blows up. And if it’s already starting to spark or hiss or explode, we can help to minimize the negative impact and work with the root issues. If the conflict has already exploded, we can help things heal. Hence, prevention, management, resolution. 

💥  One more thing about conflict, and this might shock you so prepare to clutch your pearls. (Take a deep breath for 3, hold, then blow it out for 6.) Conflict is not inherently bad or harmful or destructive. Conflict is an INDICATOR of CARE. Weird, right? Humans are weird. Conflict is an indicator that whatever issue at hand is important to the parties involved. 
  • If I don’t care about my lawn, then your dog peeing on it every morning is not a huge deal. But if I am largely invested in my lawn and derive a lot of pleasure from it and create some of my identity around having a nice lawn, etc., then that tee-tee is gonna cause some problems. 
 Conflict only emerges around things we care about. Conflict is like a surveyor’s flag. It’s waving in the wind, saying, “Ooh… look HERE. There is a LOT of energy around this thing.” And energy is how we make change.
 Are there things in your world that you care about? maybe things that could use some energy to effect change? Huh. Me, too. 
  • I’m guessing you care about your child’s education. 
  • I’m guessing you care about other children. 
  • I’m guessing that you care about the health and safety of those who dedicate their lives to teaching and supporting and nurturing children. 
  • I’m guessing that you care about hungry kids. 
  • I’m guessing that you care about lonely kids. 
  • I’m guessing that you care about folks being able to feed their families.
  • I’m guessing that you care about social systems that keep people from living full and free lives. 
    • (Gut check, I’m talking about dismantling White Supremacy, oppressive systems of governance, school-to-prison pipeline, cultural imperialism, and taking seriously the fact that as Americans, we are still living the cultural patterns of Enslavement.)
I see you, you beautiful hot mess of caring and loving and anger and frustration and big feelings and right now things are weird and scary. It’s time to stop avoiding and running away from and accommodating conflict. It’s time to pay attention. It’s time to think strategically about how we can harness our energy to make the world a more just and free and loving and beautiful place. 
Right now in the U.S., there’s a lot of conflict around education. I’m here to encourage you: noticing the conflict does not mean that things are worse. It means that people care and are — more and more– caring out loud. It is tempting to turn on one another rather than look at how we can work together to achieve mutually agreeable outcomes. Let’s do the latter, okay? We’ve done quite enough turning on one another, thankyouverymuch.  
So what does that mean for today? 
Let’s use Glennon’s exercise: Imagine the most true and beautiful story about how children learn and grow and develop into their full selves. Let your imagination run wild. This is not time for reality-checking. This is not a what-ifs or a buts situation. Let your brain play. This is what Sesame Street was training us for! 
  • Sidebar: an MRI would show your brain changing as you play and imagine. NICE.
IMAGINATION TIME!